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Breast cancer continues to disproportionately affect Black women. According to research, Black women have a 31% breast cancer mortality rate, which is the highest of any U.S. racial or ethnic group. The mortality rate for Black women diagnosed with breast cancer is 42% higher than the rate for white women as well.
Mammograms and self-breast examinations are a necessary measure to ensure that you catch the early signs of breast cancer. Teyana Taylor had a breast cancer scare recently, which she shared on her E! series, We Got Love Teyana & Iman. The “Gonna Love Me” singer found lumps in her breasts and thankfully her biopsy came back negative. She still had the lumps removed because her family has a history of cancer diagnoses.
“I just want this to be the last time I go through this,” Taylor said on the show. “Cancer runs through my family, so it’s a scary thing both for me and [husband] Iman.”
Being that the odds are against us, surviving treatment of the deadly disease is triumphant and breast cancer survivors deserve to recognized. Take a look at six celebrities who have survived breast cancer below.
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Roxanne Shante
Hip-hop legend Roxanne Shante is a two-time breast cancer survivor. When she first noticed she had a lump in her breast in 2009, she didn’t go to the doctor immediately. After losing 40 pounds she decided to go get a mammogram. Out of fear, she ignored the letters and calls from the doctor’s office.
“I had gotten a call from the doctor, ‘I just received your images at my office and they have been trying to reach you for weeks. As soon as you get back to New York, you come to my office. This is your life’,” she told Black Voices.
She ultimately decided to seek treatment.
“So I felt all eyes were on me to tell women how important it is for them to get checked,” she continued. “It is only by the grace of God that I have been able to survive. I have been blessed to not only have survived the pitfalls of an industry that has destroyed so many, but to also survive just the everyday struggles of surviving all the negative that has come my way.”
